A celebration of the wonders of nature

The second most numerous migrating animal in the Masai Mara is the Plains Zebra — also called Burchell’s Zebra.

They are boldly striped in black and white, and no two individuals look exactly alike. They also have black or dark muzzles. All have vertical stripes on the forepart of the body, which tend towards the horizontal on the hindquarters.

The northern populations have narrower and more defined striping; southern populations have varied but lesser amounts of striping on the underparts, the legs and the hindquarters. Southern populations, typically in Namibia Botswana and South Africa, also have brown “shadow” stripes between the black and white colouring. These are absent or poorly expressed in northern zebras.

This image was captured in the Masai Mara Conservancy, south west Kenya, East Africa.